Nowadays Indian food is popular not only in India but all over the world. The British, especially, cannot have enough of their favorite dish of curry, ever since the “Chutney Mary” restaurant was opened in London. This restaurant specializes in Indian dishes and cooking methods.

The words ‘Indian cuisine’ can be very misleading. This is because India is a vast country with diverse climates, cultures and agricultural products. With the change in the geography, the amount and type of fresh ingredients available in plenty also change, thereby creating a vast diversity in the Indian dishes. Therefore, there is ‘north Indian’, and ‘south Indian’ food based on region, ‘Mughlai’ and ‘Rajpootani’ food based on the different cultural influences, and even the famous Goan dishes that borrow heavily from the erstwhile Portuguese colonizers’ national recipes. Therefore, instead of getting confused by the variations in Indian food, it is better to discuss some of the more popular and indisputably ‘Indian’ dishes like the now-world-famous snack, ‘samosa’.

A samosa is a deep fried patty filled generally with boiled and mashed potatoes and a variety of Indian spices and boiled peas. Most samosa recipes call for refined flour for the outer crunchy crust. New, health conscious recipes allow these golden triangles to be baked instead of deep fried to shave a little guilt off the indulgence.

You can also experiment with the different versions of this popular snack. There are sweet samosas, “keema” samosas stuffed with minced meat instead of potato, as well as ‘chana’ samosa, or samosa stuffed with boiled chickpeas instead of the usual boiled potatoes.